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Not saying this is you, but I'm surprised how many managers seem unaware of the prevalence of social deficiencies among the highest performing engineers. 20 ye

Not saying this is you, but I'm surprised how many managers seem unaware of the prevalence of social deficiencies among the highest performing engineers. 20 years ago this was just sort of a given. I have to regularly defend a few highly productive but socially caustic engineers who are absolutely essential to our products. Management would love to get rid of them and the problems they cause without realizing no one else would dedicate the mental resources to the sort of complex, deep problems we're trying to solve.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
There’s always a balance to be kept, between high-performing engineers, and team dynamics. Great products are created by great teams. It’s almost impossible to create anything of any meaningful scope, these days, without a team. There are “superman” engineers, like Linus Torvalds, that can create entire shipping architectures, but those are incredibly rare. That said, the myth of the “cookie cutter” engineer is just that: a myth. Some cultures do better at it than others. I worked for a Japanese company, and they came very close to it, but at a cost that most folks here, would find prohibitive. High-performing teams can be difficult to manage. There’s often significant differences in personalities, egos can be high, and everyone has an opinion that is the only “right” one. Great teams require good management. It’s always fun to dis managers, but good ones are force multipliers, like nothing else.
- camgunz 3y ago
  Strong agree; I wish companies worked harder to support and develop managers. They're crucial to team success--and I would even argue to the individual development of the people they manage.
- 01100011 3y ago
  > Great products are created by great teams. It’s almost impossible to create anything of any meaningful scope, these days, without a team. Yes, but also there are things that teams cannot do, and in fact make them worse. To use an example from my org, there is a feature which was proposed to accomplish a specific objective. The feature grew in complexity to address much more than was originally planned. A large team was assembled to rapidly deliver as the original objective was important to business needs. The large team enabled the larger version of the feature. This mostly happened without the knowledge of one of those smart but ostracized engineers. When they became aware of it, they had to step in and force changes to prevent the large feature from leading to serious technical debt and behavior that would not compose with other features well. More changes should have been done to return to a simpler design that would have focused on the original goal but it was too late.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    That's where good managers come in. We're supposed to be doing more than just spout jargon to our superiors. We need to be completely situationally aware of the project, make sure that key stakeholders are always consulted for big decisions, and kept aware of plans, push back on senior managers, if what they ask is unreasonable, etc. And we need to do it in a highly unobtrusive way, that doesn't interfere with developer productivity. I have said it before, that I was lucky to have the situation I did, and the more I hear about how most companies run, the more fortunate I feel. It seems that managing my way, these days, in Silicon Valley, would just get me fired.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

There’s always a balance to be kept, between high-performing engineers, and team dynamics. Great products are created by great teams. It’s almost impossible to create anything of any meaningful scope, these days, without a team. There are “superman” engineers, like Linus Torvalds, that can create entire shipping architectures, but those are incredibly rare. That said, the myth of the “cookie cutter” engineer is just that: a myth. Some cultures do better at it than others. I worked for a Japanese company, and they came very close to it, but at a cost that most folks here, would find prohibitive. High-performing teams can be difficult to manage. There’s often significant differences in personalities, egos can be high, and everyone has an opinion that is the only “right” one. Great teams require good management. It’s always fun to dis managers, but good ones are force multipliers, like nothing else.

camgunz 3y ago
Strong agree; I wish companies worked harder to support and develop managers. They're crucial to team success--and I would even argue to the individual development of the people they manage.
01100011 3y ago
> Great products are created by great teams. It’s almost impossible to create anything of any meaningful scope, these days, without a team. Yes, but also there are things that teams cannot do, and in fact make them worse. To use an example from my org, there is a feature which was proposed to accomplish a specific objective. The feature grew in complexity to address much more than was originally planned. A large team was assembled to rapidly deliver as the original objective was important to business needs. The large team enabled the larger version of the feature. This mostly happened without the knowledge of one of those smart but ostracized engineers. When they became aware of it, they had to step in and force changes to prevent the large feature from leading to serious technical debt and behavior that would not compose with other features well. More changes should have been done to return to a simpler design that would have focused on the original goal but it was too late.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  That's where good managers come in. We're supposed to be doing more than just spout jargon to our superiors. We need to be completely situationally aware of the project, make sure that key stakeholders are always consulted for big decisions, and kept aware of plans, push back on senior managers, if what they ask is unreasonable, etc. And we need to do it in a highly unobtrusive way, that doesn't interfere with developer productivity. I have said it before, that I was lucky to have the situation I did, and the more I hear about how most companies run, the more fortunate I feel. It seems that managing my way, these days, in Silicon Valley, would just get me fired.